An asylum seeker threatened with deportation has been released from a detention centre for the second time after a Scottish businessman put up £1000 bail.

Bob Blakey, 60, a building inspector who travelled 400 miles to attend a bail hearing in Bedfordshire, said he was horrified by how Zahra Byansi had been treated.

The businessman, who runs his own company from his home in Milton of Campsie, says he put up £500 bail last March but was not informed of the family's detention.

He told The Herald: "Zahra hasn't broken any bail conditions and attended all the interviews asked for. Why go and detain her. It just doesn't make any sense."

Mr Blakey, who says he is not religious or politically aligned, forged links with a number of African asylum seekers in Glasgow after donating an old television and radio to a woman from Sierra Leone. He has since become a close friend of Mrs Byansi and offered help and advice to her.

He said: "I wouldn't believe this could happen unless I'd been involved in it myself. The Home Office just seem determined to say no to every asylum application.

"We have shown them an arrest warrant for Zahra and they just said they attach no weight to it. What do you do? They ask for evidence but then dismiss it out of hand."

The Home Office has been accused of wasting "thousands of pounds" and causing unnecessary distress after twice failing in an attempt to deport the Ugandan asylum seeker and her two children.

Mrs Byansi was returned to her home in Glasgow after being detained for three weeks at immigration removal centres in Scotland and England. She was released earlier this week after Mr Blakey put up bail, pending the result of a judicial review into her case.

The Byansis were detained on January 8 after reporting to immigration offices in Glasgow. They were held at Dungavel immigration removal centre then transferred to Yarlswood IRC in Bedfordshire.

However, the detention came three days after a fresh appeal for asylum was made, based on an arrest warrant which was issued by Ugandan authorities in September, accusing Mrs Byansi of "subversion" against the state.

The claim was not considered by the Home Office, which argued that such documents are "easily obtainable". But a subsequent application for judicial review against this decision has been accepted by the High Court in London.

The row comes after The Herald revealed yesterday that Phil Taylor, head of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate in Scotland, admitted the service was not "fit for purpose" and could take up to 18 months to sort out.

Nicol Stephen, leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats and Deputy First Minister, yesterday waded into the controversy, calling dawn raids on families of asylum seekers "shameful". He said: "It is shameful that failed asylum seekers, accused of no offence, continue to be treated inhumanely. Dawn raids are particularly unnecessary and traumatic for children."

Mrs Byansi and her children Rahim, five, and Faisal, 12, were released after an immigration court in Bedfordshire ruled on Tuesday that there was an outstanding legal claim for them to remain in the UK and they were not at risk of absconding. The Byansis were previously detained and released in March 2006 in similar circumstances.

Mrs Byansi, a prominent figure in the Scottish asylum campaign movement, claims she is at risk of persecution in her homeland because of her husband's alleged links with a guerrilla group.

The Scottish Refugee Council, which opposes the detention of asylum seeker children, has raised concerns with the Home Office over detentions which take place while legal claims to remain in the UK are outstanding.

However, Tom Harris, the Glasgow MP, said: "We can't have the situation where everyone who claims asylum insists on remaining even when they have exhausted the legal process."

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said it did not discuss individual cases.